The Shadows of Erisdar (ON HOLD)

Chapter 15

"We're in Erisdar?" she shouted at Darryl the moment the guards were out of earshot.

"It seems so." He answered in an emotionless tone, but Alex was riled up and ready to argue.

"So you kept me locked up because you were afraid I'd find out you live in the mysterious forest of Erisdar?"

"I don't live in the forest." He cut her off sharply. "Our territory lies next to the forest on the other side of the valley." Alex fell quiet after that, but Darryl continued to speak after a while. "You somehow found a path through that damned wall, and now we're here."

Anger boiled up within her at the accusation. "Oh, so now it's my fault that we got caught? You know what, I've been coming into Erisdar for almost four years, and I've been trained to move silently. If it weren't for the ruckus you were making behind me, I wouldn't be in this cell!" She ranted. Darryl did not answer as she had expected him to. "Why did you come after me anyway? You clearly wanted me to leave."

He sighed before answering. "I didn't mean to chase you away. I wasn't thinking straight, but when Percy saw your tracks heading east, Darcy made us come after you. We forgot about how dangerous the outer edge of Erisdar is."

"What do you mean, dangerous?" she asked. She had calmed and was seated at the bars next to his cell.

"There is something there, we don't know what, but the few people that came back were scared to death and haunted by nightmares afterwards. It's some creature, and when it shrieks, they become incapacitated by the sound and are wracked by a burning pain that makes them wish for death, and they say it feels as if their soul is being shattered and acid being pumped through their veins. The others that ventured there disappeared, probably killed by the beast."

Alex had an idea of what was making the people disappear, but this was the first she had heard of something else being there. What was it? Alex was curious and a little shocked to find that she wanted to know what it was. She shook the thought from her head. Her curiosity would surely get her killed one day.

***

They were going on their fourth day in the cells. She and Darryl were both hungry; all they had been given was water. Their captors had beaten Darryl the day before, and she had heard talk of them questioning her the next day. She hated to admit it, but she was afraid, and seeing that she was a woman, she expected worse than a beating.

She paced up and down the cell as she thought of what she could do. She could kill whoever came to get her with a throwing knife, but seeing that it took four men to get her here, there would likely be four again or maybe even more, and she was not going to take the chance in her weakened state. She would have to figure something else out.

She fell onto the cot and groaned in frustration. "I'm sorry that I can't do anything to help you," Darryl said from his cell. "I've unsuccessfully looked for a way out, and I can't even contact Percy. There's some kind of a block."

"It's a sorcerer's shield." She told him as she stared up at the ceiling.

"How do you know so much?" he asked after a moment of silence.

"There's a sorceress back at Boronduin. She taught me a lot. Trained me for a while, too, before I left for Eldara."

Darryl frowned slightly at the information. "Why didn't she help you with the Gasham?"

"She wasn't there at the time. She comes and goes for months at a time. If I had waited for her, then Thedis would have surely bound me to him by now, and then it would be too late." She said sadly. She truly wished she had a way of contacting Anja.